Alpine Days Rodeo

For part of our Alpine Days weekend we all went to the Little Buckaroo rodeo on Friday night and the Pure Bull rodeo on Saturday night. Trey had fun chasing chickens and greased pigs and we all had fun watching him do it! The rodeo grounds are set up against the mountains and it is so beautiful.

Alpine Days Parade

It doesn't get much better than this! The big Alpine Days parade! Perfect weather...by far the coolest year yet.

OUR ITALIAN ADVENTURE

After much scheming my sister Barbara and I figured out a way to spend a little over a week in Italy. Her daughter Harley was in Prague doing a study abroad program and Barbara was going to get her. One thing led to another and we decided to meet in Rome.
Gabi, Rachel and I met Barbara and Harley and spent 3 days in Rome, 3 days in Florence, and 2 days in Venice with a day trip to Pisa. It was amazing! We had so much fun and surprisingly no problems at all. All the food was excellent, especially the Fettuccini Alfredo Originale in Rome (worth the forune we paid for it) and the Gelato (at least once daily). Our favorite city was Florence, although Venice was charming and Rome had all the famous sites. Rachel had to go back early to get to school and missed Venice.
We decided that Barbara and Harley are the perfect traveling companions. We all liked to walk our legs off, take a cab when needed, eat chocolate crossants on trains, laugh ourselves silly, and climb how many steps?? to the top of bell towers. Oh, and don't forget our mutual hatred for pigeons in town plazzas and our lack of fear of drinking water from public fountains.
TIP... Don't be tempted to share a head set at the uffizi museum.

OH ROMA! The fettuccini, the fountains, the famous, the freakishly small!

ROMA! Are we really here?

We really walked our legs off in Rome and still didn't see everything. I guess we'll have to go back!

AND MORE NAKED ITALIAN MEN

Yes, here are more sculptures of the beautiful male form...wow.

FLORENCE! The tower of doom, etc...

Turns out we LOVED Florence! The shopping, the people, the museums, the food...we loved it all.

PISA! As in the leaning tower...

So this was Rachels last stop before heading home. (Barbara wouldn't do the corny photo op so we made her hold up a pillar in a cathedral instead) Thankfully there is a Delta flight from Pisa (a pretty small city) to JFK...who knew? Poor thing, she flew business elite (way better than first class) all the way home to SLC!

Our B&B (bed & bed) and Florence neighborhood

We really loved the neighborhood we were staying in with all the shops and nice people.